Info Br101 Expert: Some Clarification

Not in the time table you cannot it’s ai only, Dresden Riesa is the one where you can drive the 101

 

Total plus 1 for SKA! I love that route's mix of PZB and LZB operations.

 

If im right there are some freight services. They are sub in.

 

Will IC coaches use the same ones from old one?
If not could I install IC cars liveries that were made on old ones?

 

Will the manual include how to fix faults?

 

Yes in the timetable you can the 101 is on Salzburg Rosenheim, Dresden Riesa, Dresden Chemnitz, Bremen Oldenburg and Kassel Würzburg

 

I am not sure where it is the best place to place my feedback from the stream. I feel this is the most likely to be read and maybe to get a response as well

Absolutely loved what I have seen. It was a shame that the professional didn’t make it, it would have added quite a lot, I am sure It is very obvious that a lot of passion has gone into it (which is a big selling point for me) and I do believe that the release state will still evolve into an even better product.

I was wondering about the stuck brake. Obviously that happens in real life too and I would be interested to learn if it would have had any implications if you would have carried on driving. Especially if it happens only on one car it goes unnoticed by the driver up front. Usually you would rely on the staff in the back to make you aware…

I am sure that the simulation will be close to perfect and obviously very comprehensive. What I am missing a bit is the additional focus on real life procedures. I am sure this also comes from limitations in the core game but I hope this is something that can be focused on in some future updates. Two points in this regard:

- I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed to not have an „automatic“ conductor, who would be taking care of the door closing. As mentioned before, not the drivers job.

- Also, I am really happy to see that the radio is simulated to a certain extend. But, even if it would be without any real consequence, it would be a nice touch if you could contact the signaller in case of an emergency brake, as you would have to do it irl as well. They need to allow you to start moving again.

Lots of other ideas to this don’t want to clutter this post with it. I am sure the devs have many ideas themselves

Lots of potential for the future! I will certainly buy this and really do hope that you are developing this further.

 

No, the original 101 is NOT on Dresden Chemnitz, it’s AI only

 

no 101 whatsoever

 

Usually the "Angleichen" has to be done anyway, especially in Wendezügen after changing ends, this because the Fbv Brake valves are not 100% matching the 5 bar calibration or have "wear and tear". (Workshop tolerances are around +/-0.05 bar).

Technically after changing ends from the 101 FBV to the Cab Car FBV you overcharge for example to 5.25 / 5.3, then wait until the pressure drops slightly to 5 bar. You can do this while driving, but making a brake application during the "Angleichen" will cause the brakes to be stuck more and more.

Overall im happy what i saw in the stream and will get the dlc. I was expecting a lot and TSG even surprised me on top of that

 

They will come with the new train of course

 

I added two points, because I saw them asked in the stream preview thread and OpenMinded mentioned it here.
The bad news about the automatic door opening simulation is that it won't be on launch, the good news is that I have found a way to implement it that won't actually "break the game" (but of course this will only work on formations with the new IC Expert coaches, i.e. "Expert Timetables".)

"5. Suspension is not included with the initial release. I made the decision to wait for the suspension physics, in the core game, to be finalized before implementing these on the locomotive and the coaches/cab car. The reason for this, is that suspension is, in my experience, something that can be very much "uncanny valley" and divisive, so it needs to be "perfect" before it get's added to the vehicles.

6. On initial release the doors will open by themselves when unlocked and a platform is adjacent (and the doors that are opened are randomly selected as to simulate passengers opening the doors rather than all being opened, and at the same time). But, the doors still need to be closed manually by the driver.

I'm working on making this more realistic for a future patch. What this would mean is that the "virtual conductor" would use the UIC-key (which is implemented and simulated) somewhere in the train to send a door lock signal that closes all the doors, and then send a signal to the driver."

 

Hey cwf.green will cab car be compatible with 218? wich locos will cab car be compatible with?

 

Manual author here: YES! It goes without saying that this is going to be the lifeline of players.

The BR101 faults section include the translation of every fault message on the diagnosis screen, in a similarly displayed manner (formatting, larger font for easier readability of the steps to take when in motion...).

The Cab-Car faults section will include what to do for every fault light indication, and the simple steps to take if a circuit breaker trips but does not result in a fault indication (likely try to reset, if it trips again, just continue driving as it might be insignificant for the safety or driving capability of the train).

An example would be happened to Lukas during the stream. What he had going on led to the [Bremse] fault light illuminating. Had he taken the manual, he'd have seen the troubleshooting and solving steps. At the moment this section is still being written but is modelled after the real Cab-Car manual due to the in-depth level of Simulation (courtesy of cwf.green with kudos for the hard work).

 

Thank you so much for confirming this, highly anticipated feature, as you know And yes, I did happily notice that the doors do operate much more realistic already, like only certain doors open randomly etc.

I am also very happy for Lukas to have stated that there seems to be activity around a dynamic EBuLa simulation. Obviously we have no idea how far out this is, however, it got a bit quiet around this topic for a long time.

One more positive point I have not seen mentioned anywhere are the sounds! Those were absolutely stunning, I have to say. Did not expect such a big difference between the basic 101 and this one, but it was very obvious during the stream that this is on another level.

As stated above, very happy with what was shown!

 

After the stream i can say for my self this dlc is working out for me, but i think it was a mistake to keep the cab Car behind a paywall. Now for every german route this train is running, the Cab Car would need a copied timetable.


(Quick not 101 related thing to substitution: I noticed during the Riesa dresden stream 3 a.i freight trains passed and all had a 185.5 on it, so i guess DTG has the same weird things going on. But on the other hand i spotted a 187 in Salzburg Rosenheim, which never ever spawned since TSW4 in my session.)

The substitution as awhole has to be looked into. Its nice to have different timetables for different situations and eras, but obviously the core is not in a state to call it "developer friendly". Its about time TSW5 has an extensive timetable editor, which would be a massive feature.

 

Regarding the cab car on new routes I was speculating that there may be two layers for ICs going forward. One for the normal 101 (services without cab car) and one for the expert 101 for services with cab car. Let’s see what happens….

 

Finally getting some balanced view inputs. Thanks for that! As I pointed out in another post: How can we judge price worthiness of a product we hardly know?

There's one question I wanted to get off my chest: The already available BR101 has a quite notable impact on FPS rates. Even on PS5 (on PS4 driving out of DRA Dresden with the "stock" 101 caused frequent crashes). How's the Expert 101 behaving here?

 

You are of course right about the brake. What I meant was more as a random fault scenario. You do get stuck brakes which have nothing to do with an overcharge. I was just wondering if this kind of fault would be modelled and has to be taken care of as well.

 

I hope this extra timetable for expert loco's is a temporary thing. if more expert loco's get released will we get routes with 5 times the same timetable but a different expert loco each time? the random service function is going to be even worse as you can't turn off reduced timetables either for example. just like the 101 not supposed to be on Dresden - Chemnitz freight. another core issue that will never be fixed.

with the upcoming dovetail direct. and still missing functions like formation designer that doesn't crash all the time, suspension improvements, weird substitution issues and my personal favorite. those two trains standing on the same track at freilassing since release whilst the yard is empty. going to tsw5 just when the 101 will get a patch plus additions and fife circle also an update. it means to me that dtg has no vision on how to care for the product they make. just smash out more content and hope it only breaks 3 things instead of 10.

nonetheless the expert 101 looks like a great product where I'll sink a lot of time in. hope the bugs seen in the preview stream will be fixed upon release.

 

I responded to that earlier in this thread. The answer is no. The BR101 Expert is one of the few situations where this is needed (due to the original DLC only having a loco and coaches while the Expert having loco, coaches and a cab car).

For example, if an expert freight loco is made in the future it can sub right in, without needing a duplicate timetable. It can even add extra layers (like cold and dark runs), without needing a new timetable. Caveat: if the old timetable is at the brink of memory, then you might not be able to add extra layers (but substitution will still work). But if we really want those extra layers we could just choose another route that doesn't have these issues.

However, I don't think being dead set against extra timetables is a mindset that serves you well as a player. That limits us (players I mean now) to a single "snapshot" in time, rather than having a 20XX timetable and a 20XY timetable and so on (more content). Of course this has to be reasonable, 5 timetables per route is overkill for sure.

 

I think I am going to have it printed out and bound into a book for easier access... I dont have a second monitor, so constantly switching between game and pdf is kinda inconvenient

 

This might take over 110 pieces of paper and a whole lot of ink. And as stated in the stream, there will be updates to it, and I suspect a few of these might themselves on the manual, so a printed version may become outdated.

 

Unfortunately, can’t watch the stream until next week. However, I’m really happy that the reception seems to be positive here (setting aside the vocal parties in the announcement thread). I’m really looking forward to catching up on the stream and getting my hands on the new 101

 

Thanks for the heads up. Double sided printing in A5 should only take 25 sheets per 100 pages, so I‘m not too worried. I‘ve always found hard copies easier to deal with.

Really looking forward to such a detailed manual. A rarity in TSW.

 

ah I must have read over your explanation then. the cab car does make that difficult. any other expert line would be just an upgrade of course so no trouble to put in the same timetable.

Question for the SRM one though. in real life the IC 2083 and 2084 Königssee ran around the coaches at freilassing. has this been put in the game too? or does it still drive a normal IC formation backwards (I don't think it's a sandwich formation ingame) and a cab car would be wrong.

Extra timetables would be great in my opinion. for using the "start a random service" I would love for dtg to make it possible to turn off certain ones like the reduced timetables for console. personally playing on PC I like to have more traffic than less. and when I get the expert one I'd prefer if I do a 101 trip for it to choose the expert 101 instead of the normal timetable.

I'm not against more timetables. diesel legends of the GWR is a great idea for example. it's a difficult thing because of infrastructure differences that people will complain about then. the WSR diesel and steam gala for example work great together and both the 2021 basegame and 2024 modded Bremen - Oldenburg timetables are great too. I can live with just for cab car reasons the expert 101 needs a second timetable. the whole train setup for Dresden Hbf to Dresden Neustadt seems a bit not worth it but for being TOD4 routes I get the choice.

Cold and dark runs sounds interesting. I feel the game on the german and austrian side is missing the PbZ (empty stock), Loco and shunting moves (passenger and freight). also freight loading like american and british routes have seems to not exist in germany.

 

I watched the stream no problem though... if I manage to read through, learn and understand what is in the manual NOW, I will already have the basis to understand the shenanigans of this DLC, and I can learn the rest from the updated manual... or just print out some portions from the updated sections

but I will certainly like to have sth handy when driving

at the same time, when watching the stream, I felt... humbled, a lot... like... even from that little we saw in the stream, imagining the scope of it, of things... I realized just how little I know... and kinda became sad cos... the language... like I would love to try my hand at becoming a rail driver for OBB, but... German *waaah*

 

cwf.green I have two questions regarding the Einstelltabelle.. Do I understand correctly that "Einstellwert max. VMZ bei BRA" only states the maximum possible value, but not the actual inputs? And if so, when the timetable says maximum speed is 95 km/h, do I enter rather 09, or 10 to the VMZ field? Thanks!

 

noir
Yup, it shows the maximum permitted speed with those calculated values. If the Timetable had a lower speed, you enter that. On timetables should alw be speeds rounded to tens, and if not (never saw but who knows), you round down to ne next tenth.

 

Perfect, thanks, I could now finish the last thing to have the data display included in my freight calculator

 

btw havent caught this in the stream - will they include sth in the manual on how to calculate stuff to enter into PZB and such systems?

 

This thread is what you are looking for (all of it, not just the first post). It is a very complicated thing to learn

 

oh yeah, I know that thread... blown my brains all over the place each time browsing it lol... so I hope the manual covers it as well

 

That's why I created that calculator in the first place, so that something calculates all those formulas and conditions for you. It cannot be explained in much easier way, it is simply complicated

 

The manual covers it, yes, it covers how to do it realistically like walking around the train, and using the brh calculator in the train. However, absolutely nothing wrong with using external tools like noir 's if you wish to do so too.

 

oh yeah, another thing I didnt catch in the stream - considering that entering the data and as such the whole setup at the start will be much more extensive than usual one in other locos, will that be reflected in the starting time? I mean, usually you have like 1-2mins to get the train ready for departure... and thats other locos... here you will be doing a lot of things, so I hope you get much more time before you are required to depart

 

More practical question, if the doors are now selectively responding only to passenger demands (which in itself is a really nice touch), that also means that in free roam they will not be working at all, correct?

 

5. The cab car will be compatible with the Railpool Vectron, DB BR111 and DB BR218 on release, more are probably compatible but I have not tested these yet. This compatibility is at a "non-Expert level" which means that you can do the normal stuff like control doors, traction, train lights, pantograph, main circuit breaker and train line (when applicable) but some of the special indicators or switches that require jumper cable signals will not function since the jumper cable signals required for these only exist on the Expert vehicles. Mixing the cab car with old IC coaches is not supported.

6. The BR101 Expert is compatible with most other locomotives (at least the Railpool Vectron, old DB BR101, DB BR111, DB BR218 etc). However, the coaches may need to be broken up by a non Expert coach at release due to the locomotive not detecting all older locos (some have incompatible setup that makes them invisible). This will hopefully be fixed in the upcoming patch. The compatibility is at a "non-Expert level". For example the MU control (like ZDS or ZMS) pantograph selection will not work on the rear-non Expert locomotives (since they lack this capability). Certain MU indicators in the cab of the BR101 Expert will be missing (again since the older locos do not have this data).

 

See my comment above

 

thank you

 

Some more information about the current state of the manual and what to expect:

• I initially anticipated only about 120 pages, we have over 130 now due to more details and nicer graphics, oops.
• The Cab-Car faults and solving instructions are basically complete.
• During export, the table of contents will be used to create bookmarks. You can use bookmarks to navigate through the document easily with a PDF reader like Adobe Acrobat, and I expect other readers like Foxit are capable of that as well.
• When relevant, I have added hyperlinks at keywords to redirect to certain chapters. For example, when the acronym ZxS is used, if you skipped the associated chapter on "Multiple Unit Setup", each time the word appears, it will have clickable link that will redirect you to this chapter if you have doubts.
• For screens, those being the MTD (left in the 101), the EBuLa screen and the GSM-R panel, there will be page trees, schemes in which you can see all of the pages you have access to if you press certain buttons. We don't explain all pages in detail, but with this, you can at least see all pages you have access to. NOTE: the EBuLa screen does not feature route information or tracking, for those not aware yet.

All in all, I'd say it's nearly complete and we should be ready to send it to have the last detail added by DTG: Copyright information, a necessity as the official manual, later today or early tomorrow. I'm hopeful you will get your hands on it soon and that it will live up to expectations. Thank you for your patience and thanks to everyone from DTG and TSG involved in the project.

 

It's crazy how much work! That sounds great!

 

I didn't see this question before. The doors should work in free roam, the same way they work in service mode, as long as the released side has a platform adjacent to the door. And if there is no platform next to the door (which won't happen in service mode) you can always open the door yourself (as long as it is unlocked). The passenger-opening-door simulation is not quite as sophisticated as you maybe thought. It doesn't care about what the passengers want (that is way outside the scope of the simulation since it would require significant core changes in the passenger simulation of the game).

That's also partially intentional since it would break the game otherwise (if the train happened to be empty and the station had no passengers, either as an oversight/bug or simply because of low traffic the doors would remain closed and the timetable task wouldn't succeed). Instead it is probabilistic with weights based on passenger load level etc.

Speaking of the door lock factor. You will find that if the doors are locked in the locomotive you can enter the coaches, only the cab car which has a door lock override key. In fact, the door control in the locomotive and cab car can fail, as can the UIC cable in the locomotive. Happily these faults are extremely rare, and even if they were to occur they would probably be fixable. Extremely rare with Chaos Factor = 1, that is...

EDIT: I dislike giving out exact probabilities, but approximately it would happen once in about 1000 drives. Even if the Expert locomotive has a lot of replayability, maybe 1000 drives will take some time

 

Thank you very much for this document. Can't wait to start reading it before I buy the DB BR 101 Expert

 

I'm impressed by the work that's taken in to this product! And so cool that the team members are so open about what we can expect. For sure i will buy this on day 1!

 

Are the the new timetables setup so that the compatible locos can sub in?

 

No, definitely not, that would ruin the point of the duplicate timetables

 

Thanks, during the stream it was visible how the door opened with a passenger waiting behind it, so it looked like they are demand-based. I don't drive passenger trains in free roam, but from I saw elsewhere passengers do not interact with freeroam trains, so that left me wondering how that would work.

 

I have to say, you’ve both done a great job trying to break down this DLC for us. A+ on engaging with us and trying to answer some tough questions on a few different threads. I personally appreciate it and it’s really helped me warm up to the idea of grabbing this.

I don’t know which 101 I will prefer in the end, but I think this is worth a shot for me + it’s TSG we’re talking about here- excellent track record.

 

looking forward to it also thanks for the hyperlinks and such, but I will also have it printed out, even if I know that there will be updates... I want to have it available to me in physical form, so I can carry it around with me and study it even when not at home... also once I learn it, which will take some time I assume, I want to have it handy so I dont always have to alt+tab to the pdf (I dont have second monitor to have it accessible at all times)

I will also download it to my phone, since I assume I will have to wait till I get my next salary to have it printed out and bound

so... I dont really know when I actually get to play the DLC itself... but I certainly want to study stuff first to see if I am capable enough I certainly hope so... only train Jesus knows if I ever get to drive a real German/Austrian loco IRL, so this might be the closest I get to the actual stuff